Passengers on a transatlantic KLM flight yesterday had quite the journey to “nowhere,” and bathrooms are to blame. Man, this is a rough reason for a diversion.
Broken bathrooms cause KLM transatlantic diversion
This incident happened on Monday, February 12, 2024, and involves KLM flight KL601 from Amsterdam (AMS) to Los Angeles (LAX). The flight was operated by a four-year-old Boeing 787-10 with the registration code BH-BKF.
The 9:50AM flight ended up taking off from Schiphol Airport at 10:28AM, and began its intended 10+ hour journey across the Atlantic. However, things started to go wrong pretty quickly, and the issue apparently involved the toilets (more on that in a bit).
Around 70 minutes after takeoff, the crew made the decision to return to Amsterdam, and the aircraft began making a 180 degree turn… and then the crew backtracked, and the plane continued its journey.
The plane kept flying toward North America for roughly two more hours. However, once the plane was over Greenland, the pilots decided for a second time to return to Amsterdam, and they followed through on the decision this time around. The plane ended up landing back in Amsterdam exactly 6.5 hours after it departed, at 3:58PM.
So, what exactly went down here? Reportedly there were issues with the aircraft’s bathrooms. According to one passenger onboard, all nine of the aircraft’s bathrooms stopped working, and at that point the pilots decided to return to Amsterdam.
However, according to the same passenger, one bathroom then started working, so the crew decided to continue the journey.
But then for some reason, after flying an additional two hours, the decision was made to actually return to Amsterdam.
It’s anyone’s guess what exactly was going down in the cockpit and cabin, and exactly how many lavatories were out at a particular point.
This is a lose-lose situation
There’s nothing good about this situation, and I’m not sure the airline or crew could win either way here:
- It’s simply not practical for up to 344 passengers to share one bathroom, if eight go out of service
- At the same time, it absolutely sucks to waste so much time and so many resources over airplane lavatories, especially when you’re already a good distance to your destination
I think what’s probably most frustrating here is how the crew was going to return to Amsterdam just over an hour after takeoff, but made the decision to continue. If the flight had just returned then, the journey would have been just over two hours, rather than well over six hours. Beyond that, I imagine the journey was quite unpleasant on the return to Amsterdam, with just one bathroom. Of course as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20.
Some people may be asking if they couldn’t have just diverted to somewhere along the way to fix the issue. While that sounds logical, that also presents its own problems:
- It’s possible the crew would have timed out (meaning they couldn’t complete the flight, per their contract), and then the plane and passengers would have been stuck at an airport that KLM potentially doesn’t even serve
- It’s possible that the issue couldn’t have been fixed quickly, and then everyone would’ve had to be accommodated at a non-hub, which is all the more complicated
As inefficient as it seems, often the lesser of the evils is to have a plane return to the hub where you have sufficient staff, spare aircraft, and can make plans to easily accommodate everyone.
Bottom line
Passengers on yesterday’s KLM flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles didn’t exactly have the journey they were expecting, after nearly all the lavatories on the aircraft reportedly stopped working.
What makes this story wild is that the crew initially planned to turn around a bit over an hour after takeoff, and then backtracked, and continued its transatlantic crossing. Then a couple of hours later, the decision was finally made to return, leading to a 6.5 hour flight from Amsterdam to Amsterdam.
What do you make of this KLM diversion?
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